December 23, 2018
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My first real girlfriend was Alice Beer. We started to like each other toward the end of our eighth-grade year. I don’t remember exactly how it got started, but I’m sure there were stolen glances and whispers behind hands and even rumors from friends.
Then Alice took a bold step – she sent me a note. But this was no ordinary note. It was a note written in French. Now, in my junior high school, French was not offered until we were in ninth grade. But her best friend, Jane Parks, was taking private lessons in French. So, Jane helped Alice compose a note in French.
Alice knew what the note said. Jane knew what the note said. But I was clueless. Of course, Alice told me not to have anyone translate the note. All this she did to minimize her risk in approaching me. But, of course, I wanted to know what the note said. So, I picked a ninth-grade friend of mine, Andy McCullough, who was taking French, but who also ran outside the normal social circles at Welch Junior High. This made him safer in my eyes, because he wasn’t likely to spread the content of the note around to my friends. I chose Andy McCullough to minimize my risk.
Alice was mortified to learn that I had Andy McCullough translate the note (“Not Andy McCullough!” she cried), but that didn’t stop us from being boyfriend and girlfriend our entire ninth grade year.
There were other girlfriends, of course, and would-be girlfriends as I was growing up. Some went more smoothly and others less smoothly than this one. All had potential for embarrassment, for letdown. Notes, go-betweens, translators and emissaries of various kinds, could all reduce the degree of risk and cushion the potential fall. But the risk still remained, despite all our efforts to protect ourselves.
You could say that God uses a go-between, a substitute suitor. God does not appear directly to Mary. God sends Gabriel. This could be because God is too powerful to appear before any human being. Or it could be that God is waiting in the wings, with butterflies in his stomach, afraid to get too excited and bracing for one more disappointment, this time from a young woman, barely more than a girl, already betrothed to a poor carpenter named Joseph.
For whatever reason, though, it is Gabriel who is dispatched to a town in Galilee called Nazareth. He seeks Mary out and when he appears before her, he greets her: Mary, you are radiant with beauty! May God be with you!
Mary is thunderstruck. What on earth could be happening to her? But Gabriel immediately reassures her: You have nothing to fear, Mary. God has a special surprise for you. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and you will call him, Jesus. He will sit forever on the throne of his ancestor, David.
And Mary says: But…but…but…how? I’ve never even gone near a man!
But Gabriel says: It’s not a man who will do this. It will be the Holy Spirit. The power of the Most High will hover over you. And your son will be unique. And if you find this hard to believe, I will let you in on a secret – your old cousin, Elizabeth, who long ago was labeled, “empty,” is now pregnant – six-months full.
That’s the deal. That’s Gabriel’s pitch. He’s laid out all his cards on the table, or at least as many as God will allow him to lay out. God is probably pacing back and forth in heaven, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for Gabriel to walk in through the door with a big “thumbs up,” hoping against hope that he will not be disappointed, that he will not be turned down.
What will Mary say? Will she say, “No, he’s much too good for me, too rich for my blood”? Or will she say, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly hurt Joseph”? Or even, “To tell you the truth, Gabriel, I was waiting for another god to ask me out”?
Is this too ludicrous to imagine? This is not some shy, uncertain eighth grade boy. This is God, after all, the Lord of heaven and earth. And isn’t God, by Mary’s own confession, the one who brings down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty? If God has his way with the rich and powerful, how much more could God have Mary for the taking?
But that is not God’s way. If God were to force Mary into compliance, it would render Mary’s act of faith meaningless. If God were to overpower her into a relationship, it would make it impossible for her to love God.
So, in risk and in freedom, God offers favor to Mary. And, in freedom and in risk, Mary says, “Yes. I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills.”
After Gabriel departs, Mary makes a quick trip to see her relative, Elizabeth. When Elizabeth sees Mary, the baby in her womb leaps for joy. Elizabeth too is filled with joy, both for her own child, and for Mary’s. Elizabeth says, “You are indeed blessed, for you accepted what God told you.”
And Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
Why does God look with favor on lowliness? Why doesn’t God work through the rich and powerful? Couldn’t God get a lot more done that way?
I think God doesn’t choose the rich and powerful because they are so difficult to work with. The rich and the powerful are more likely to say, “Gabe, I’d love to work with you but I’ve got two or three real big projects going right now, and I just can’t take on anything else. Get back to me next year.” They are more likely to say, “I’m going to have to check with my financial advisers, because my money is all tied up in investments up right now.” They are more likely to say, “I don’t know where you come from or who sent you here, Gabriel, but I am nobody’s servant.”
God doesn’t choose the proud, the powerful, or the rich. God scatters the proud. God pulls down the powerful. God empties the rich. And God looks with favor on lowliness.
So, if you can imagine that God may have approached Mary in this way, if you can imagine that God opened himself to disappointment, if you can imagine that God gave Mary the power and the freedom to say, “No,” then perhaps you can imagine something else.
Perhaps you can imagine that God has looked with favor on your own lowliness. God has looked with favor on you, not because of your deeds or your strengths or your position in life, but because of your lowliness – your weaknesses, your mistakes, your failures, whatever has humbled you. And because of your lowliness, God has come to you. God has come to you in freedom. God has come to you in openness. God has come to you in risk and vulnerability, because God will not force anything upon you. God comes to you and makes a promise – Christ will be born in you.
This Christmas, may you have the courage, the willingness and the faith to say, “Let it be to me according to your word.”
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